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Food

Part of a nation's history lies in what people eat. Artifacts at the Museum document the history of food in the United States from farm machinery to diet fads.

More than 1,300 pieces of stoneware and earthenware show how Americans have stored, prepared, and served food for centuries. Ovens, cookie cutters, kettles, aprons, and ice-cream-making machines are part of the collections, along with home canning jars and winemaking equipment. More than 1,000 objects recently came to the Museum when author and cooking show host Julia Child donated her entire kitchen, from appliances to cookbooks.

Advertising and business records of several food companies—such as Hills Brothers Coffee, Pepsi Cola, and Campbell's Soup—represent the commercial side of the subject

This cardboard CARE package, contains seven smaller boxes and bags of macaroni, cornmeal, Carnation instant chocolate flavored drink mix, and nonfat dried milk. It has a paper insert reading "August 6, 1962. Greetings from the men of the U.S.S. Lake Champlain." The macaroni boxes are marked "Packed for CARE USA by A.Zerega's Sons, Inc." CARE is the acronym for "Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe." CARE Package is the registered trademark of the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc. It began its emergency food relief at the end of World War II.

Originally, CARE packages contained surplus foodstuffs from the military, but after the Army rations ran out in early 1947, CARE assembled its own packages, typically containing several tinned meats, eight ounces of powdered eggs, a pound each of lard, apricot preserves, honey, and raisins, and two pounds each of margarine, sugar, powdered milk, and coffee. Food companies made donations of their products, but CARE bought most of these supplies and paid for their shipment. Individuals placed orders by mailing a $15 "remittance" (a check or money order) to CARE's headquarters in New York.

Packages were assembled in Philadelphia, shipped overseas, and delivered locally by any means of conveyance. When a recipient received the gift, a signed receipt was returned to the sender within 120 days. As the famine threat subsided, CARE packages included books, blankets, tools, and knitting supplies. CARE even managed to send x-ray machines and iron lungs from its larger donors. The food package program ended in 1967, as CARE switched to other means of shipping commodities, though it renewed the classic CARE Package occasionally, most recently in the former Soviet republics and in Bosnia.

Roger F. French, Donald R. Lester, and John A. Gunnarson made this prototype microwave oven in 1961. Only two were produced. Instead of using a magnetron to generate the microwaves, this oven used a type of vacuum tube called a klystron. To see how the ovens would work in actual kitchens, Gunnarson used this one in his home and French used the other. Children of the inventors recall impressing their friends with the ease of cooking with microwaves, years before such ovens became commonplace.

French had founded Servodyne Corporation in 1960 to produce and sell microwave ovens for the home. But they faced stiff competition. Other companies like Raytheon, which had produced a large "Radarange" for commercial use in 1954, were working on home ovens that used magnetrons. Servodyne failed to attract enough funding to bring the invention to market, and the company folded in 1968.

Posed group of men standing behind a table laid with food. One of the men wear traditional African dress. There is a cabinet and two windows with closed drapes behind them. No ink on negative. Ink on envelope: caption and "2 of ea glossy". "KODAK - SAFETY -- FILM" edge imprint. Retouching on faces with New Coccine

Cite as

Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

This 6-oz. metal can that once held frozen orange juice concentrate represents the way many Americans got their morning glass of juice in the 1950s and ‘60s. It contained a frozen cylinder of concentrated juice that had to be thawed and mixed with water in order to drink. Many households adopted the habit of placing a frozen can of concentrate in the refrigerator to thaw overnight so that mixing it with water in the morning would be faster and easier.

Frozen orange juice concentrate was developed by scientists at the National Research Corporation (NRC), working with support from the federal government and the Florida Department of Citrus. Their goal was to improve the quality of food for American troops during World War II. In the early 1940s, soldiers were supplied with lemon crystals for Vitamin C, but too many of the crystals went uneaten because of the unpleasant taste. The NRC scientists examined the conventional process for evaporating the water from fresh juice, which was done in a vacuum at very low temperatures (minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit). The resulting flavor was so concentrated it didn’t taste like fresh juice. The researchers discovered, however, that flavor was restored by adding more fresh juice to the concentrate as it came out of the evaporator. The process of adding "cut-back" to the concentrate was patented in 1948 and quickly adapted for the postwar consumer market. Orange juice concentrate production in Florida grew from 3 plants in 1948 to 10 the following year.

Minute Maid, born out of the success of frozen orange juice concentrate, was named to reflect the product’s convenience and ease of preparation. In 1965, after the company was sold to Coca Cola, Minute Maid’s packaging underwent a dramatic redesign, from its original white, orange, and green color scheme to the dramatic black and orange design of this can.

Group of men seated and standing around a dining table. The table is laid with bowls of soup. No ink on negative. Ink on envelope: caption, "1 glossy of ea, 3 dw of big group, 1 dw of small group" and "2 glass [?] transfer [?] Dr. Thomas". "KODAK - SAFETY -- FILM" edge imprint. Retouching on faces with New Coccine

Cite as

Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Page 8 from The Doughnut Magazine, containing reproductions of photographs and drawings depicting the production, sale, and consumption of doughnnuts in England, South Africa, the Arctic, Genoa, and China

Cite as

Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera, Archives Center, National Museum of American History